NHS Heroes: Trust still promising to pay doctors four months on - Coronavirus pandemic

The GPs say Belfast Trust made them an initial pay offer – on what they said was a trainee doctor rates – on the very last day of their contract.

They had been running the Covid-19 ‘step down’ hospital in The Ramada Hotel for seven weeks during the most tense days of lockdown.

The doctors worked 24-hour shifts from April 15 to June 4, supervising Covid-19 patients who had been discharged from hospital but were not fit to return home.

After repeated inquiries about pay, seven weeks after starting work their line manager emailed them a “proposed” pay package – on the same day their emergency care centre closed its doors. But some of the GPs responded that this proposal did not reflect their responsibilities or experience levels.

After that, they claimed there was almost total silence from the trust while they repeatedly reached out to secure an agreement. 

When their spokesman, Dr Neil Wilson, 66, contacted the News Letter in mid-July he said communication improved and the trust said it was “making progress” on making payment.

However, last week the doctors contacted the News Letter again to say that they had still not been paid.

Over the past eight days the News Letter repeatedly asked the trust for an update. Finally, yesterday morning the trust apologised for the delay in responding and said payment would be made this Friday, declining to make any further comment.

Dr Wilson responded: “Who is ever going to work for them again?”

“We were told on Monday it was going to be processed and then I got a phone call yesterday from one of the HR directors who wanted to check what days we did. And then we got a text last night saying it would be paid within 48 hours.”

He has heard back from some of the doctors affected. Four of the GPs had locum-type status and all their other paid work had dried up during lockdown.

“There has been a mixture of relief and disgust. They are glad they are getting paid but, we are never going to do that again, or at least, if we do, we will do it with our eyes very wide open.”

The GPs finally accepted the initial pay offer made by the trust on their last day in work.

They had initially responded that the offer to cover each 24-hour period was not much more than a normal day-time locum shift payment, and asked for a flat 24-hour rate instead.

However, they said they had not been adamant about their proposal but could not get any response from the trust until the News Letter intervened.

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